


We bid him a tender goodbye

by hongmunmu



Series: A serpent in the rice [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Non-Graphic Torture, Prisoner of War, Second Shinobi War, Summoning, young sannin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 15:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13744305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongmunmu/pseuds/hongmunmu
Summary: Shortly after becoming a chuunin, Orochimaru is incarcerated as a prisoner of war in a Kirigakure prison.





	We bid him a tender goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing was based on a headcanon i got from a fic i once read. i'm not certain of the author but basically, it had that while he was still a young teen, orochimaru was briefly in an enemy prison and was quite different afterwards. i wanted to explore that idea, and i think it fit quite well into the story, so chalk it up to a headcanon, and/or chance for character development. this series focuses more on experiences that shaped orochimaru into who we see in canon, so... yeah. with any luck, this one shows who he is and how he thinks a little more, since it's mostly his POV. enjoy!

 

“Quick! Quick, everyone through here—” 

“Sensei, Orochimaru’s—” 

“What are you doing, you freak?! Hurry up, before we all get killed—”

Orochimaru hangs back in silence, making sure there’s a good distance between him and the other three; with one finger, he releases the seal on the explosive tags. From there it all seems to happen too fast to register. A blossom of flame and ash, dust, high-pitched ringing in his ears; already they’ve been caught off-guard, too late to do anything, supportive beams and chunks of heavy bedrock blocking any easy passage. He can just about see them through the gaps, trying to claw their way back to danger. The fools.

“Orochimaru!” Hiruzen all but screams, in his arms Tsunade who’s sobbing as she struggles to leap forward into the fray. The tunnel is caving in, rocks and debris falling in on them; he sees through the dust a pebble hit Jiraiya’s head, and smirks in spite of himself. Jiraiya doesn’t even notice, occupied with shouting his lungs out and all but running head-first into the carnage. Orochimaru almost thinks he’s going to get crushed, before Hiruzen’s hand is in the boys’ shirt, yanking him back. It’s a sorry last image as they’re blocked from sight; one man restraining two kids, all three of them yelling, screaming and crying. Orochimaru smiles at them as the last rocks fall and they vanish from view completely.

Before the small Tsunade that lived in Orochimaru’s head had a chance to protest his decision, Orochimaru already had an argument. It stood to reason that one of them was going to be captured in order for the others to escape— Tsunade Senju, grand-daughter of the First Hokage, and Sarutobi-sensei, jounin and prospective Third Hokage, were obviously out of the question, both being far too valuable to get into enemy hands. That left him and Jiraiya, and Jiraiya, while a show-off, was about as substantial and dependable in these kinds of situations as a stalk of wheat. One hit to the nose and he’d probably sell out the entire village. Sensei was the kind of fool who’d likely cause a distraction to let his students escape, even when he was a crucial Konoha warrior and they were just three children. Orochimaru just had to take matters into his own hands before any of those three idiots messed everything up. 

It wasn’t self-sacrifice. It was just logic. 

The tunnel’s been blocked completely now, and he can faintly hear Jiraiya’s yells from the other side— the bastard always had a voice louder than was conceivably necessary— protesting whatever lecture Sarutobi was no doubt delivering. He smirks, even as he sees the torches of their pursuers flicker light up his end of the tunnel. There was something so incredibly satisfying about the knowledge that he’d made it impossible for his team-mates to screw things up with their constant bad decisions. He sits down cross-legged, leaning against the rubble with a satisfied smile on his face, and waits for the enemy to catch up to him. 

* * *

The prison, despite its’ ominous barbed wire fences and general appearance of brutality, isn’t anywhere near as bad as Orochimaru had been preparing for all those years. Perhaps things were worse in Sensei’s day, the breaking wheels, the spikes, hung by your wrists from the ceiling with weights on your ankles— compared to those horror stories, this wasn’t much worse than the council housing blocks back in Konoha.

“That cuff will block your chakra flow,” the guard spits. “In case you were having any funny ideas. You won’t be able to use ninjutsu here, so don’t bother trying, ‘cause it won’t end well for you.” He gives Orochimaru a firm shove in the back, apparently to prove his point. 

They’ve been walking some while, corridor after corridor of cells passing them by; brisk enough that Orochimaru couldn’t get a good view of any other prisoners. The cells were completely walled except for the barred doors, and those were slim, letting only a sliver of dim light into each. The doors lining the corridor alternated cell sides, presumably to stop the prisoners getting a good look at each other— at least, not without going right up to the bars and shoving their nose through. Technically, it’s a good design. Orochimaru would have complimented it, were he not one of the prisoners it was being enforced upon. 

Chakra disruption device clamped to his arm, manacles holding his wrists  together, his usual kimono taken and presumably burned in place of drab, itchy sackcloth. Parallel blue lines tattooed around his wrists to indicate he was now a documented prisoner of war. Orochimaru hardly recognises himself, and somehow, it feels good. 

“This is you,” the guard grunts at last, and keys jangling, he removes Orochimaru’s handcuffs, unlocks a cell to their left, and shoves the latter in. Orochimaru for his part doesn’t get up immediately, content to keep his nose in the dirt for a moment or two if it kept the illusion of non-threat. Instead he glances around his small, blocky cell; there’s cracks on the walls leading to small holes in the corners, and that combined with the small droppings and undeniable stench of shit obviously indicated rats. On the left wall there’s a small grate down at the joining between the wall and the floor, giving him a glimpse into the adjacent cell; scum stains on the floor by said grate indicating various fluids must have leaked through. Up on the walls and ceiling, graffiti; tallies scraped and scratched into the stone indicating a sad few months of a previous inhabitant before they either got bored or died. There’s a meagre few handfuls of hay strewn about the dirty floor, and in the corner, one undignified little bucket. Home away from home.

The guard has finished relocking the cell, and gives a pitying snort as he lingers, ring of keys spinning on his finger, watching Orochimaru slowly get up into a sitting position. 

“I’d watch out for the guy in the next cell if I were you,” he hums, apparently in a better mood now that his charge is off his hands. “‘Cause prisoners in this one always seem t’have a pretty bad track record.”

Orochimaru looks up, pushing his dirty hair out of his eyes. “For what?”

“Staying alive.” 

The guard grins and walks away, whistling, still spinning the ring of keys around his finger like a toy. As his footsteps fade, Orochimaru slowly lies back down, scraping together some of the hay to pillow his face at least somewhat from cold stone floor. Out of the corridor, there’s a faint scream, and a distant, persistent sound of someone beating at the bars. On the wall directly opposite him, Orochimaru sees a small, sad message scratched into the wall.  _ I want to die _ , it read. 

What an idiot.

* * *

“Lord Second, your student is here to see you.”

On cue, the door creaks open, revealing Hiruzen with his head bowed. 

“Sensei, I ... have a request.”

_ Gods, here we go,  _ Tobirama thinks. He turns back to the group of ANBU lined against the wall, waving at them dismissively. “Give us the room. This won’t take long.” 

In a flurry of bowed heads the masked shinobi are gone, and almost immediately Tobirama rounds on Hiruzen, palm slammed against the desk. 

“I don’t know what’s going through  _ your _ head, Hiruzen, but I have a  _ war _ on my hands, so for your sake this had best be worthwhile.” 

“It’s my student, sensei. I want to lead a rescue mission—”

“And I’m telling you, for the hundredth time,  _ no! _ You are one of my most valued jounin, Saru, and I won’t have you risk your life and several others on a wild goose chase for  _ one _ genin—” 

“Sensei, Orochimaru is a chunin, and an extremely talented one—”

“Well, good. Then he’s not your student any more and can take care of himself.” Tobirama snorts, not looking at Hiruzen as he leafs through a report; there’s a pause before he speaks again with a dismissive smile, tone gentler now.  “I  _ know _ the boy you’re talking about, Hiruzen, and I’m telling you we have nothing to worry about. He’s no weakling.  _ You _ trained him, after all; I’m sure he’d rather bite his own tongue off than become a leak.” 

Exasperated, Hiruzen steps forward, and now it’s his turn to slam his palms on the desk. “Leaked intel is  _ not  _ what I’m worried about!” 

Tobirama doesn’t react initially, just slowly puts down his report; he only looks Hiruzen in the eye a beat later, nostrils flared. 

“Perhaps it _should be!_ You are a Konoha shinobi before anything else, Sarutobi, so damn well act like it! My duty is to this entire village, and if you were any student of mine you’d remember that and focus on your _own_ duty instead of wasting my time with fool’s errands. I was planning on naming _you_ my successor, but perhaps I’ll need to _reconsider._ ”

“What of your niece, sensei?! What of Tsunade?! Do you want her to lose a team-mate as well as a grandfather?!” Almost immediately Hiruzen regrets the outburst; Tobirama’s thin eyes narrow in dark fury, and when he speaks again the rage is practically palpable in his words.

“Get  _ out  _ of my office, Sarutobi, report to your post, and  _ do  _ not bother me again. And if I hear so much as a  _ whisper _ that you, or  _ any _ of your friends or students have left the village on an unsanctioned mission, I will treat it with  _ all _ the gravity of a rogue desertion. Do you  _ understand _ ?”

“Yes, sensei,” Hiruzen affirms bitterly. 

“Good. Now get out.” 

 

The door swings with a creak that sounded a bit like pity before clicking shut, and Hiruzen turns only to be greeted with more bad news. 

“That sounds like it went well,” Danzo remarks. “He must really be in a good mood to be calling you _ Sarutobi _ .” 

“I take it you overheard the whole thing,” Hiruzen concedes in defeat. 

“Only the shouting, but yes, I got the general idea.” Danzo pauses, scratching the scar on his chin thoughtfully before nudging Hiruzen away from the door. “You might not want to hear it, but he does have a point. If it was your little oaf Jiraiya I’d understand your concern, but Orochimaru’s been more or less at jounin level for some time. He’s had capture-scenario training like everyone else, and he’s no headstrong idiot. I’d wager the brat’s just fine.” 

“ _Please_ don’t talk about Jiraiya like that,” Hiruzen instinctively snaps, before sighing and following his former team-mate’s lead away from the lion’s den. “And that might be so, but you and Tobirama-sensei don’t… _know_ Orochimaru like I do,” he begins, crestfallen. “I’m less worried about what’s happening to him now than I am what’ll happen when he gets out.”  
“We have perfect rehabilitation systems,” Danzo points out, puzzled.

“He’s unstable. He’s always been unstable. I’m worried that if we wait for him to be released or escape on his own, there won’t  _ be _ anything left to rehabilitate.” 

* * *

Orochimaru wakes up to a crack of light illuminating the dusty cell, before it’s blocked out by the regrettably familiar face of the prison guard.

“Hope you still like rice,” the guard calls, as a chipped tray is shoved into the cell without ceremony through the food slot.  _ Hope you still like having a wife who hates you and sleeps with one of your co-workers,  _ Orochimaru thinks in retaliation, retrieving the delivery tray and inspecting it. 

“I thought we got white rice on Sundays,” he says flatly. 

“Yeah, hotshot, and today’s Saturday. Try not to lose your marbles too quick. You’ve only been here a few weeks.” The guard takes a drag of his cigarette boredly. “And hurry up with that tray. I’ve got other prisoners to feed, y’know.”

Methodically Orochimaru scrapes out every last grain from his meagre bowl, adding the food to the accumulating pile at the back of his cell; a mound of brown rice, at varying levels of expiry, crawling with bugs. From it he’d made small trails of white rice, leading to three cracks in the wall. The guard, watching him through the bars, chuckles as Orochimaru slides the delivery tray back through the slot. 

“I see you’re really embracing the crazy prisoner life. Food art? Original. I thought you were meant to be a genius, or something.” 

“It’s not art,” Orochimaru says tiredly, leaning back against the wall. 

“Hunger strike? That’s not gonna get you anywhere, kid. I seen that all before, and trust me, it doesn’t go anywhere nice.”

Orochimaru says nothing, closing his eyes. 

“Well, suit yourself. But you’re gonna have to eat it eventually if you don’t wanna starve, so I’d start picking out that non-moldy bits of your little sculpture back there, before you get rats. Once they arrive, they don’t go nowhere. And when they finish your leftovers, you’re gonna start lookin’ real tasty.”

“I thought you had other prisoners to feed?”

The guard scowls, dropping his cigarette butt in the gutter lining the cell, and in a bout of aggression whacks the bars with his baton. There’s a creak of wheels and some vague muttering about  _ ingrates _ and  _ not getting paid enough _ as he and his trolley take their leave, then silence in the corridor once more. 

 

“He’s right, you know, boy.” 

Orochimaru pauses, before cautiously leaning down; as if in a kowtow, he presses his cheek to the floor, looking through the grate at the base of the wall. The prisoner in the cell adjacent to his own is leaning against the opposite wall, shovelling his own rice into his mouth. 

“What would you know, old man?” 

“You’re real lucky to be alive. These Kiri types, they don’t keep everyone they capture… ain’t enough cells for that. Or enough rice.” 

Orochimaru snorts, rolling over to stare at the cell ceiling. “Why are _ you _ still alive, then?”

The old man taps his nose, chuckling. “I’m smart. You must be, too, else you wouldn’t be in that there cell. You and me... we’re useful. Useful gets to live. Useful gets rice. That’s the way it is.” 

“A senile sack of bones like you doesn’t seem all that useful.”

“I don’t  _ crack _ . Soft young meat like you, though, I’ll wager you squeal like a pig at the first tool they pull on ya.” 

Orochimaru’s eyes narrow. 

“I heard the guards say you was Konoha. Last ones what was in that cell, they was Konoha too. Soft ones. Young ones. Looked like they were gonna squeal.” The old man smiles. “I made sure they couldn’t.” 

Faster than Orochimaru would have thought possible, the old man crawls towards the grate until his face is pressed right up against it; instinctively Orochimaru scrambles backwards to put some distance between them, falling back onto his ass. 

“You get what I’m saying, right…? I’m useful ‘cause I got something they want: Konoha intel. And  _ I don’t crack _ . Now you come in, and you’re useful for the same reason. We’re the only ones from Konoha in this place. You talk, and suddenly, I ain’t useful no more. And you know what happens to ones that ain’t useful.”

Orochimaru exhales a half-laugh. “And here I thought you were a loyal old veteran... but you just silenced the others to save your own sorry life. I’ll wager you’ve told them plenty.” 

The old man taps his nose. 

“I’ll get out of here a hero. Just you wait.” 

A tense pause holds the air still, Orochimaru backed up against his cell wall, the old man’s bony hands gripping at the grate, eyes wild. Orochimaru holds his gaze a good few moments before he speaks again.

“Contain yourself. I have no intention of telling them anything.”

The old man stares at him a while longer, old eyes narrowed and cloudy with cataracts. 

“They all say that,” he murmurs darkly, and retreats from the grate into the darkness of his own cell. 

* * *

The summoning tattoo was one-of-a-kind, a technique entirely unique to Orochimaru. When he’d designed it, this scenario hadn’t been the one in mind; he’d pictured battlefields, face in the mud, chakra reserves at absolute zero. It was made to be a last-resort, no-time-to-think technique, relying solely on blood rather than chakra; a final ace up his sleeve. In this case, Orochimaru supposes, it’s served its purpose as just that, if not in the way he’d expected it to. The main advantage to devising your own jutsu and methods was that no one could anticipate them, and therefore have no countermeasures.

That said, it’s an extreme stroke of luck that he’s not handcuffed. 

Orochimaru’s taken to piercing his finger using the sharp tip of one of his earrings— he draws blood, and swipes it down the centre of the tattoo. The summons who’s appeared before him— a pretty (if unimposing) white viper— wastes no time in getting to business, apparently having anticipated Orochimaru’s distress call. 

“Where is her present?” 

Orochimaru glances behind him, tilting his head to the pile of dead rats in the corner of the cell. “Thirty of them, fresh. Like you said. I didn’t forget.”

“ _ Ve _ ry  _ nice _ ,” the serpent croons, dragging out each syllable. “And what does the child want in exchange?” 

“You and your siblings’ help, whatever it takes, until I am back in Konoha. Alive.” 

“This child drives a hard bargain,” the snake says doubtfully.

“Thirty fresh rats,” Orochimaru warns. The snake, he thinks, were it not a snake, would have bitten its lip in turmoil. 

“Very well,” it hisses, inspecting the rats. “Thirty more for each of her sisters will buy their help too, yes. But sisters are not enough. The child wants brother Manda, doesn’t it?”

Orochimaru nods.

“Manda doesn’t want rats. For Manda, the price is a man.”

“He’ll have one, as soon as I am free—”

“ _ No _ . The price is a man,” the snake says again, coiling around the pile of dead rats protectively, “Fresh.” 

In a puff of smoke, the snake summons and the thirty rats are gone. A month of work, a month of cohabiting with literal rats, of going hungry, sleepless nights to avoid being bitten, kneeling next to a pile of putrid rotting rat-infested rice, and he’s bought the help of one small viper. 

Fighting the urge to laugh hysterically, Orochimaru collapses onto the floor, pressing his cheek to the cold, dirty stone. It’s so cold. He’s so fucking sick of being cold. 

_ I want to die,  _ the wall says quietly. 

“Shut up,” he spits in response. From the cell behind him, through the grate, the old man softly chuckles. 

* * *

“Alright, scum. Up.  _ Up,  _ I said!”

There’s a loud clattering down the hall— the familiar sound of the guard dragging his baton against the bars of cell after cell like some violent xylophone in play. Behind him, no doubt, a second group of guards unlocks the cells one by one, leading each prisoner to the yard at knifepoint for their routine exercise. Joy of joys. Orochimaru is awake before they’ve reached his cell, bracing himself for the ruckus; which, sure enough, comes to greet him. 

“Up! You too, brat, let’s go. Sooner you’re out of your own filth, the sooner you can get back in it. If it were up to me, you could all waste away in here, but as it is...” 

 

The prison yard is cold and imposing, almost more dismal on the outside than it was in the cells; Orochimaru shivers, his breath clouding in front of him. The sight of it makes him miss jutsu; he’s been practicing his seal patterns during the long hours of aching boredom in his cell, but there was no substitute for the feeling of weaving a technique from one’s own chakra and watching it blossom into the world. The damn chakra-blocker; hopefully that would at least form some useful information to take back to Konoha, when he got out of here. 

“If you stay still like that, you’re gonna get a beatin’,” comes the ragged voice of another prisoner; Orochimaru recognises the speaker as a Kumo-nin, judging by his accent, and nods in acknowledgement as he joins the main group half-heartedly jogging in a circle around the yard. As he runs, his eyes scan the other prisoners; ahead, he spots the old Konoha shinobi from the cell next to him, barely shuffling along. Evidently, this place wasn’t kind to the elderly, because the other prisoners are shoving and insulting the old man when he gets in their way or steps on someone’s toes. How convenient. 

Things were becoming a little too stagnant, anyway. 

Orochimaru quickens his pace, small frame weaving through the crowd of hard-edged prisoners until he was behind the old man. With a quick and discreet nudge, he knocks him off balance, sending him crashing into another, particularly unfriendly-looking Ame prisoner, before falling back and disappearing into the rest of the crowd. 

“Hey, old man! The fuck you think you’re doing?” 

“Just a mistake, boy…” 

“You patronising me, geezer?” 

Orochimaru ducks to the sidelines as inconspicuously as possible, before biting his thumb and swiping it across the summoning tattoo on his arm.

“Now,” he whispers, and the pretty white viper hisses in acknowledgement before slithering through the crowd; weaving around the bare feet of as many prisoners as she could before halting at the old man’s feet, baring her fangs at his aggressor. 

“ _ Snake! _ ” several people scream in succession, and the yard erupts into chaos; the old man is throttled by the Ame ninja, while several of the latter’s goons start to shout; smirking, Orochimaru withdraws to the corner of the yard, signalling his summons to disperse. The crowd grows rowdier as the old man apparently makes some effort to defend himself - it’s hard to see from where Orochimaru is standing, but that doesn’t matter. Light on his feet he shoves the backs of two more random men, pushing them into others; within minutes several fights have broken out, and clusters of guards arrive from each entrance to the yard, wielding batons. One of them is met with a punch in the face when he tries to restrain a prisoner; on the grass patch, the old man’s been knocked to the ground, and is being beaten mercilessly by one of the Ame ninja’s friends. The Ame ninja lies nearby to that with a hand-made shiv in his throat, and a little ways from there, a thin-faced woman is trying to scale the barbed fence in all the commotion. Three Kumo-nin take advantage of the chaos to settle personal vendettas, all attacking one guard, stomping his head on a stone slab; a girl who couldn’t be older than Orochimaru starts wailing, and lies face down on the ground in submission. A few more join her, eager to escape the wrath of the guards; others leap into the riot for no reason beyond senseless violence, and with an animalistic roar crack another prisoner over the head with a found stone.

Orochimaru sits back, pulling his prison uniform closer around himself, and smiles—  _ really _ smiles— for what feels like the first time in his life.

* * *

“There’s your present,” Orochimaru hisses, tossing his last victim down by the hair. The third man falls to the wet stone floor, eyes rolling back into his head. “Take them to your bastard elder brother and tell him to be ready for my call.”

“Yes, good child,” whisper the three vipers in unison, and each lay their fangs into one of the shower-room corpses before vanishing in puffs of smoke. 

Naked and half-starved, Orochimaru had never looked less threatening. Blood washed down the drains, the showers had never looked less like a murder site. 

* * *

“In here. It’s this one.”

Orochimaru glances up at the gaggle of guards blocking the light to his cell as one of them wrestles with the lock to his door. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to let me out?” 

“Shut up. Our only other source of information on Konoha was killed in that riot the other day, so it looks like you’ll be taking his place. Get up.” 

_ Finally.  _ Orochimaru resists a smirk as he complies, wrists bared for the handcuffs dangling from one guard’s gloved hands.

 

Orochimaru doesn’t speak once between the cell and the interrogation room he’s led to, a secure, white, almost surgical-looking place, nor as he’s belted into a reclining sort of chair. Typical of the Blood Mist to have such a budget for torture. In Konoha, things were a little more rustic, the torture a little more homemade. 

The man who’s been assigned to make him talk is sat opposite, legs wide, one elbow resting on his knee. He had a jovial, almost fatherly sort of look to him; the sort of face one might expect to be served by in Ichiraku Ramen. If it weren’t for the thumbscrews and other implements of torture sat on the table beside him, and the blood crusted under his fingernails, Orochimaru wouldn’t have guessed he were a military man at all. Appearances were deceiving, he supposed. 

The interrogator waited until the other guards had shut and locked the door behind them before he spoke, his middle-aged face cracked into a smile that wouldn’t have been sinister in other circumstances, but was doubly sinister given the circumstances. 

“So, Konoha. I’ll go ahead and assume you already know that to get out of this, all you have to do is agree to talk. Personally, I’d prefer it if you would. I don’t like hurting pretty things— I’m not that sort of man. So here, I’d offer you the chance to speak up, so we can avoid all this unpleasantness. I’m putting all of that out in the air now, just for the record.” A terse pause. “But something tells me you aren’t the type to sell your folks down the river. That’s your whole thing, you Land of Fire types, huh? You’ve got more fire than that. I can respect it.” 

Still Orochimaru says nothing. 

“Yeah, alright, then. I thought as much.” The interrogator grins sickeningly. “Let’s put some colour in those cheeks, Konoha.” 

* * *

Jiraiya and Tsunade don’t smile anymore.

Hiruzen doesn’t much, either; not even for Biwako. He knows she’s tired of his moping— she says as much nearly every time they meet up— but somehow, no matter how many times she or Tobirama tell him it wasn’t his fault, he can’t shake the sick feeling in his gut telling him he caused this. 

It doesn’t help that both of his remaining students  _ do  _ blame him, even if Tsunade has more tact than to say so outright. Jiraiya always voices what Tsunade doesn’t, and every mission goes the same with them now. 

“I don’t fuckin’ get it.” 

“Jiraiya, I know you’re upset, but watch your language.”

“Don’t  _ fuckin _ ’ get it,” Jiraiya repeats, muttering, hands balled into tight fists. Hiruzen stifles a sigh, rubbing at the back of his neck, and glances over to Tsunade. Her stature hasn’t changed; eyes down, face sullen, shoulders sunk. If he says anything to her she’ll pretend not to hear him, so he leaves it, watching Jiraiya pointedly march ahead. 

Neither of them had been the same since Orochimaru’s loss, and as for Hiruzen, well— he felt like a hole had been punched in his chest. But he was an adult and Tobirama wasn’t going to let it go if he slipped. 

So he stays quiet and pretends it’s all fine as they do mission after insignificant mission within the boundaries of Konoha, and tries not to think about the furtive, wild-eyed boy who’d sacrificed himself for them one month prior. 

It feels like it’s been years. 

Hiruzen is twenty-five, and his students are thirteen, and all three have grief-stricken faces that would look more at home on a colony of lepers. _ At least he’s alive _ , he tries to comfort himself. It doesn’t work. 

* * *

“I’ll tell you this, Konoha, you’re a tough nut to crack.”

Orochimaru resists the urge to spit in response, because he’s already lost one tooth, and he has no intention of drawing any more attention to his mouth lest the torturer get plier-happy again. All Orochimaru needed was his left hand free, but that wasn’t going to happen until this cretin decided to take more left-hand fingernails off, and for now he seemed more than happy to stick to the right hand. And while Orochimaru was fairly flexible, he wasn’t a miracle worker. He couldn’t reach the summoning tattoo with the same arm it was tattooed on. 

“You’re making things very difficult for me, you know. You could at least scream, make me feel as if I’m making a  _ little  _ progress.” 

Briefly he ponders if the arm wasn’t the best place for a summoning tattoo. He’d thought it out as carefully as possible when designing it, but now, in medias res, he really wonders what was going through his head. For one, he could only use it if he still had both arms, and mobility in the left. It was war. People lost limbs. He’d have to seriously rethink his last-resort strategies, when he got out of this. 

The torturer, who has plucked out the last fingernail on Orochimaru’s right hand to no avail, sits back in frustration, bloody pliers tossed back on the table. There’s a few uncomfortable moments of silence disturbed only by Orochimaru’s laboured breathing before the interrogator decides to go for a different tack. 

“Listen, Konoha. You’re strong, alright? Noted. But we’ve been doing this for weeks, and as I’ve said, I hate to go the messy route. Just look at things objectively, for a moment, alright? Time out.” The torturer takes off his blood-stained plastic gloves and drops them in a wastebin. “You’ve been very uncooperative with us, diligently protecting your village for a good long while, testing out nearly every toy I have. You’ve even made me pull a tooth, which, by the way, I really hate doing. All that and you won’t give us a thing because evidently, you’re very loyal. Admirable, by the way. Very admirable of you.” 

Orochimaru blinks at him, waiting.

“But have you considered this? You’ve been here two months. That’s right, two months. Sixty days, and not a peep out of your little village. Not one. No hostage exchange sitch from the Hokage, no foreign ANBU break-ins, no mercenary jailbreaks. That village you’re so dead-set on protecting is happy to let you rot in a jail cell. Just seems unfair to me, that’s all. Maybe you ought to think on that, Konoha, before we get the water pail out again. Partially because you should think about your own situation, and partially because I hate to fuel that stereotype that Kirigakure loves to waterboard. Me? Personally? I don’t. I’m not a violent man, you know, Konoha. This is just my job. So what’s going to happen is, I’m going to take out another fingernail or two from your other hand, and you’re going to see sense and talk, and all of this unpleasantness can be put to rest. How does that sound?”

The man with the face that belonged in Ichiraku Ramen unstraps Orochimaru’s left hand, and from there, everything happens both incredibly fast and incredibly slow. 

  1. His free hand dodges the cuff and connects solidly with the torturer’s jaw. 
  2. His free hand keeps going and connects solidly with his right arm. 
  3. His only remaining fingernail sinks into his emaciated flesh and draws blood. 
  4. His only remaining fingernail scrapes the blood down the tattoo in a line. 
  5. He speaks.
  6. He speaks an incantation. 
  7. Manda. 
  8. Manda.
  9. Manda.



“ _ You’ll pay for waking me up, brat! _ ” Manda screams, massive tail lashing across the room and batting pink smoke out of the way. The torturer is caught in the collision and, right as he resurfaces from where Orochimaru’s unexpected punch had knocked him to the floor, he’s thrown to the other side of the room, making unpleasant contact with a wall cabinet. 

“You three!” Orochimaru shouts, but the three sister vipers already know what to do, slithering up the legs of his chair and biting through the tough leather restraints. The second he’s free the chair is kicked behind him, toppling to the white tile floor, and he’s sprinted to lay his hands on Manda’s enormous body. 

“Crush this wretched thing off without injuring me,” he says, holding up his wrist to the light to show the snake the chakra-blocking device. 

“In your wildest  _ dreams _ , human,” Manda says, spitting a blob of venom at him. 

“You conniving little rat!” Ichiraku Ramen man yells, scrabbling to his feet, pulling a kunai from inside his coat. “I’ll fucking quarter you!” 

“I wouldn’t help you if you were the last human alive,” Manda spits,

“You’ll  _ burn, _ ” the kunai comes hurtling towards them,

“ _ Do as I say, beast of Ryūchi Cave! _ ”

The door opens and six masked men pour in, each shouting louder than the last—

Manda’s powerful jaws clamp shut. 

“What the hell is going on in here?!”

“ _ Hattori!  _ What have you done?!” 

“Prisoner on the loose—” 

Orochimaru’s now-freed hand catches the kunai.

Dog, horse, bird. His chakra flows again, like a fresh rain in a Land of Wind drought. Like a river bursting its banks. 

Orochimaru grins, and forms the seal with his bloodied mutilated hands, and a blast of wind fells every soldier in the room. 

“If it is making an escape it would do well to make haste,” hisses one viper, winding around Orochimaru’s leg,

“It must hurry!” echoes another, mirroring its’ sister,

“Manda, the north wall!” Orochimaru commands, climbing onto his summons— 

“You’re going  _ nowhere, _ Konoha,” comes the regrettably familiar voice, usual joviality twisted in murderous rage, and Orochimaru feels a hand yank at his ratty mess of hair, pulling his head back. 

Manda’s enormous tail smashes through the northern wall and ceiling, letting daylight fall into the sterile room. 

“Don’t let them escape!” shouts one of the masked men, before a viper sinks her teeth into his throat. 

The kunai in Orochimaru’s hands saws through his hair like paper without a second’s hesitation and he’s free. 

“I’m  _ leaving,  _ with or without you, human filth!” Manda bellows, silhouetted against the outside light. 

Something sinks into his lower back and his body goes cold.  

“You’ll die here,” comes a voice in his ear. 

Everything goes very black. 

* * *

“...After this conflict, better known as the Four-Day-War, the Blood Mist began to mobilise through guerrilla tactics, enacting sneak attacks all along the borders of the Land of Fire. You will all be familiar with it, I’m sure, given many in this village suffered personal losses in those attacks. Jiraiya, I hope whatever you’re staring at is a good deal more interesting than the First Great War, because you’re about to share it with us.”

“Jiraiya,” Yuhi mumbles, elbowing him. “Utatane-sensei is talking to you.” 

Jiraiya blinks in confusion, before looking from his classmate to the lecture hall. Every pair of eyes in the room is trained at him, kids desperate for a distraction from the dull brainwashing session. Koharu raises an eyebrow, tapping her foot. 

“Well?” 

Jiraiya realises his mouth is slightly open, and closes it, glancing back to the view. He’s sure he’s not imagining it. 

“Jiraiya, I’m going to lose my patience in a— _ Jiraiya!” _

“Gotta go,” Jiraiya says, and vaults over the windowsill, hops down the terraced Academy roofs, and sprints away.  The class stares in amazement, while Koharu goes very red in the face. Yuhi, who has just caught wind of what Jiraiya had been staring at, is the first one to interrupt the flabbergasted silence. 

“Sensei, there’s a…” 

Koharu snaps her book shut, rounding on the girl. “What?!” 

Yuhi’s trembling finger points out the open window, to the mass of trees in the distance surrounding the outskirts of the village— to the dust clouds trailing through the air, and the black silhouette within them.

“There’s a—  _ a giant snake _ —” 

* * *

The hair is the first thing Tsunade notices. It’s the first thing any of them notice, really— his once-long, sleek hair, falling straight down like an oil spill, now hacked off above the shoulders, an uneven half-bob shorter than Tsunade’s own. A few strands of his original length remain, the thin evidence of whatever they’d missed, falling around his face and trailing down to his waist. It’s childish, Tsunade knows— this knowledge that her friend had been imprisoned and tortured and dragged through hell and back, and all she could focus on was his hair. But somehow, to her, it felt the saddest thing about it all. He’d always been proud of it, even if he didn’t outright say so. She knew him well enough to know that.

The worst part is that she thinks, when he’s recovered from all this, that the hair will be what he’s saddest about, too.

“Lemme  _ through!  _ Yeah, out of the way, we’re his  _ team— _ ” 

Jiraiya surfaces from the crowd, shoving bystanders out the way, and Sarutobi-sensei follows in his wake, face twisted in an expression Tsunade can’t read. 

“Hey, scum. Someone take this brat out of my mouth before I eat him,” Manda mutters, speech slightly impeded by the limp body suspended in his jaws. 

Sarutobi is the first to move, rushing forward; Tsunade and Jiraiya follow soon after, though they can do little beyond pretend to help as their sensei lifts Orochimaru out of the monster’s mouth, letting it raise its ugly head from the ground. 

“About time,” Manda growls, shaking itself off. “I should have eaten him, for all the manners you Konoha wretches show.” 

“We are indebted to you, Manda,” Sarutobi says loud and clear, laying Orochimaru gently on the ground so he can offer the snake his deepest bow. He speaks with all the confidence of one well-versed in the handling of summons. “You have my, and all of Konoha’s deepest respect, and gratitude. If I could just ask what—”

Manda, apparently satisfied with just the thanks, dissipates in a puff of pink smoke without another word of what happened, and Sarutobi sighs in exasperation before rejoining his students. 

Tsunade, who’s crouched with Jiraiya by their incapacitated friend, claps a hand over her mouth. It really takes everything she has not to cry as she looks at him, emaciated and thin-faced, streaked in blood. Hair a short and matted mess, fingers mutilated, lips cracked. Ugly and bloated and scarred and dirty. He looked dead. That was her first thought. He looked like he was dead. 

Behind them, there’s a murmur among the crowd of useless bystanders; they’re parting to reveal a gaggle of stern looking shinobi, the Hokage at their head. 

“Is he alive?” Tobirama barks sternly at one of the medical-nin before she’s had a chance to examine Orochimaru. Sarutobi-sensei pulls Tsunade and Jiraiya back, gently but firmly, as the medics swarm around Orochimaru’s still body like flies to a corpse. 

“Just barely,” calls one of them, fingers at Orochimaru’s pulse. “Get the stretcher!” 

The medics load Orochimaru onto the stretcher and are gone as fast as they arrived, all rushing off in the direction of the hospital; their white-uniformed bodies shielding him from view. Jiraiya runs after them before Sarutobi has a chance to protest; Tsunade remains on the ground, holding back the tidal wave of whatever it is she’s feeling. 

“Saru,” Tobirama’s aggressive voice cuts through the static noise of the commotion. “What happened? Where’s the snake?”

“He dispersed before I had a change to interrogate him.” 

Tobirama curses, sucking his teeth. “So uncooperative, those snakes. Fine. Let the medics do what they need, and as soon as he wakes up, we’re going to do a full mind sweep and questioning. I want you there, in case he’s volatile.” He pauses, looking Sarutobi up and down, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Get a hold of yourself, Saru,” he murmurs, quiet enough that Tsunade has to strain her ears to hear. “Nothing’s clear yet. Whatever it is you want to do or say, hold onto it until after we know what happened.” 

With that, he’s gone like a storm, flanked by two ANBU; the gathered crowd have started to lose interest, now that the monster, body, and the Hokage have left, and begin to go their separate ways. Eventually, Tsunade and Sarutobi are the only two people left at the gates.

Quietly, Sarutobi leans down and takes Tsunade’s hand in his; with a gentle squeeze, he helps her up to her feet. Her face has already began to crumple as she gets up; within moments, the tears come, floodgates open. It all pours out, all the worry and crippling sadness that was building up inside her for the past two months, and she loops her arms around her sensei’s waist, snot running into his kimono shirt. 

“It’s all right,” he says gently, and though Tsunade’s admittedly a little indisposed, she’s quite sure she hears him sniff. 

He pats her on the back, and they stay like that for a while until Tsunade’s cried herself out. 

* * *

“Idiot. Stupid fool asshole idiot turd. Snakey little idiot stupid dumbass. When he wakes up I’m gonna punch his lights out and send him right back to sleepy town.” 

“ _ Jiraiya _ ,” Tsunade urges, discreetly stamping on his foot. “Do you want that nurse to try and kick us out again?”

“No,” he grumbles.

“Then shut up.”

The hospital is cold and unwelcoming, and they’ve been waiting there for hours. The only saving grace is that, as the village’s honorable granddaughter, the nurse was very hesitant about making Tsunade cry again.  _ As long as you’re quiet and don’t disturb anyone, you can stay,  _ she said. Well. It was manageable for Tsunade, but Jiraiya’s attention span was shorter than his dick. Which was to say, very short. (She’d seen it once on a dare.)

“When’s he gonna wake up? I’m bored, already.” 

“Let him rest. You don’t know what he’s been through.”

“I got an idea. Which is why I want him to wake up, so I can ask him about it. And then hit him, a lot of times.”  

“Try it and I’ll break your tiny dick.” 

“Like you could, washing-board.” 

“Do you want to  _ go _ —”

“Two months and you’re both still  _ fools, _ ” comes a croak from the bed. Jiraiya and Tsunade both freeze in their tracks, childish bickering forgotten. There’s a beat of pure, loaded silence before they both rush to him, fighting for the front seat on the bedside. Tsunade gets there first and doesn’t let Jiraiya barge in, so he goes the long way around, sitting on the other side of the bed. Together they sandwich him in. 

“Hey,” Tsunade whispers, at the same time as Jiraiya says:

“Nice haircut, douchebag.” 

“Thanks,” Orochimaru says weakly. His voice sounds dry as bone and hoarse, like he’s been strangled; nothing like the smooth quiet sound it had once been. Harsh, and raspy, but it was still him, so Tsunade supposes it’s alright. 

Another hour floats by. The nurse hurries back and forth, bringing water and painkillers; Orochimaru is generally too tired to talk, because as they discover, he’d been stabbed with a kunai. It’s mostly spent in comfortable silence, with Orochimaru occasionally deigning to answer one of Jiraiya’s assault of questions in two or three words. It’s quiet and gentle and pleasant, really, for that brief window of time. 

Then all at once, the door slams open, and in swarms a group of shinobi; at their head, Tobirama, flanked by Hiruzen and Koharu Utatane. Behind them comes several more jounin, most of which Tsunade recognises as members of the Intel corps, and two ANBU. The nurse, visibly distressed, scurries in front of the partition almost protectively, as if to stop the small army in their tracks. Tobirama had always moved like a war made flesh. 

“Lord Second, Sarutobi-san, sirs, I really must insist that you come back later. Orochimaru-kun is in no state to—”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” Orochimaru says immediately in a half-coherent, almost whispered slur, ignoring the nurse. 

“Orochimaru, listen to me,” Hiruzen says urgently, striding forward past the others to sit next to Jiraiya on Orochimaru’s bed, clutching the boy’s upper arms with both hands in a manner he probably thought would be comforting. “It doesn’t matter what you told them. These things happen. You’re not in trouble— we just need to know what—”

“I didn’t tell them _ anything _ ,” Orochimaru interrupts coldly. His voice has a hard, sharp edge to it, despite the exhaustion and pain. There’s a few marked moments of silence, all quiet but for the clock in the corner ticking the seconds by. 

“Right, thank you,” the nurse says strictly. “You have your answer. Please leave now. This boy needs to recover.”

“Yes, woman, we’re going,” Tobirama says impatiently with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Just give us the room for a few minutes to confer, if you would.” The nurse’s eye twitches in annoyance, but she says nothing, bowing and stepping away. Tsunade wants to shout at her uncle, tell him not to talk to women like that, but holds her tongue. She’d never much liked the Second, relative or not, and she doesn’t want to risk being kicked out of the room by the bigheads. 

Tobirama turns on the men behind him, gesturing a young, blond man forward. 

“Yamanaka, if you would.”

The man nods, and steps up to the bed; Sarutobi indicates for Tsunade to move, which she does, reluctantly. The intelligence nin takes her place, and puts one hand on Orochimaru’s head. 

“Just relax for me, if you would,” he says, quietly. “This will only take a moment.” 

Orochimaru closes his eyes and rests his head back on the pillows as a surge of chakra glows blue around the Yamanaka’s hand. 

* * *

Just logic. I want to die. Konoha, soft young meat like you will crack. I don’t crack I is useful. Useful is good. Useful gets rice. Rats is useful rats gets rice. Rot in rice in the rats in trails in the cracks in the walls in the cell in the prison in Kirigakure, white rice on Sundays, his wife is cheating on him with a man named Koichi the other guards always laugh about it behind his back. The rats are getting hungry. Kumo-nin, Ame-nin, Iwa-nin, Suna-nin, Kiri-nin, Konoha-nin. Thirty days and thirty fresh rats.  _ Snake!  _ Pretty things one tooth gone. Into the showers armed with a shiv. Four cuts: three throats, one thumb. One stabbed abdomen, because he deserved it. Shower room corpses. Ichiraku Ramen man. Shit tattoo placement. Konoha. Sixty days. They still haven’t come for you. Useful gets rice. Konoha. Ten toenails and nine fingernails. Konoha—

* * *

“— _ Yamanaka! _ ” 

“He’s… telling the truth, Lord Second. He didn’t say a word.” 

Tobirama raises his eyebrows for a moment, before nodding. “Hm. Very good. Thank you, Yamanaka.” He turns to the rest of the squad, giving them a curt nod also. “You’re dismissed.” 

 

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Sarutobi says to Tobirama under his breath, as the intelligence lot leave and Tsunade reclaims her place beside Orochimaru. He’s asleep. 

“I’ll admit, I’m surprised,” Tobirama remarks, glancing down at the sleeping boy, “He never struck me as the self-sacrificial type.”

“To him, it wasn’t self-sacrifice,” a dull-eyed Tsunade murmurs, to the surprise of the pair of adults huddled with their backs to them. “It was just logic.” 

Tobirama eyes his niece for a moment, expression unreadable in the way adults often are when they don’t expect to hear children talk. 

“Quite,” he says after a beat, before turning to leave. He hesitates in the door for just a moment, though, before leaving the small, wounded team to each other; eyes lingering on Orochimaru’s unconscious form. 

“Look at that,” he remarks, tone light given the situation. “Carried home in the jaws of a bloodthirsty snake, and he still fell asleep smiling.” 

* * *

He misses his hair. 

 

“I feel naked,” Orochimaru says dully. 

“Come on,” Tsunade says softly, picking up the scissors from where they lay askew on the vanity. “I’ll tidy it up.” 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always welcome if you enjoyed my fic. bookmark the series if you're interested in more works centering on orochimaru's life!


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